Thursday, 26 March 2009

Sungai Siput, to be more precise Sungai Siput (U), is a small town located at the northern part of Perak. I grew up there, and therefore it has given me so much of memory. The post office of Sungai Siput is situated in the middle of the town, and it has been the centre for managing mail from and to Sungai Siput. Throughout the history of the post office, many postmarks have been in used for mail cancellation. The name of the town in the postmarks appears in different versions i.e. Sungei Siput, Sungai Siput and Sg Siput. I have a small collection of Sungai Siput postmarks which I am so delighted to share.

Sungei Siput K1, Perak; date: August 4, 1998

Sungei Siput K, Perak; date: October 27, 2000the format of this postmark is similar to the previous one except the "K1" becomes "K"

Sungei Siput K1, Perak; date: December 3, 1993the format of date is different from the above two, and the size of this postmark is also slight larger

Sungei Siput K, Perak; date: May 19, 1998the format of this postmark is similar to the previous one except the "K1" is replaced by "K"

Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Pos Malaysia does from time to time issue beautiful stamps. One of the beautiful stamp sets that I treasure so much is the bantam stamp set released on August 1, 2001. The bantam images on the stamps and miniature sheet were designed by Mr. Teh Yew Kiang who is a well unknown Malaysian artist specializing in birds! In fact, Mr. Teh has been assisting Pos Malaysia in the design of bird stamps. The latest bird stamp issue (unique birds of Malaysia) was also the artwork of Mr. Teh.

Monday, 23 March 2009

Pos Malaysia released her third stamp issue on March 23, 2009 on the topic of costumes. Five different traditional wedding costumes were depicted on five 50-sen stamps - Malay, Indian, Chinese, Orang Ulu and Bajau. The stamps were printed in the format of strip of five. Apart from the five 50 sen stamps, a booklet was also released. The booklet contains ten 30-sen stamps (two sets of stamps) with five different designs as those of the 50-sen stamps. The stamps from the booklet have different background. Two different watermarks (SPM) have been recorded for the stamps from the booklet - upright and inverted watermarks.

stamps from stamp sheet

stamps from booklet; two different watermarks (upright and inverted) have been recorded for these stamps

Thursday, 19 March 2009

Malaysia modern stamps are normally printed on watermarked paper. The type of watermark commonly used is SPM, which is the abbreviation of Security Printer of Malaysia. The SPM watermark was applied on stamps as early as 1986. The word SPM is designed in a pattern of wave (Figure 1), thus it is called wavy SPM watermark.

The occurrence of watermark varieties in modern Malaysia stamps is considerably high. SPM watermarks in the format of upright (Figure 2), sideway up (Figure 3), sideway down (Figure 4), inverted (Figure 5), inverted-reversed (Figure 6) and sideway up-reversed (Figure 7) have been recorded on Malaysia stamps. A good number of stamps have two types of watermark (upright vs inverted or sideway up vs sideway down). In some instances, stamps with three types of watermark (Figure 8 and Figure 9) have also been recorded! Sometimes, stamps with different types of watermark are sold at different post offices. Therefore, the presence of watermark varieties makes serious collectors runing like a rabbit chasing for these varieties from different post offices. It is indeed tiring but definitely fun.

Figure 1: Wavy SPM watermark

Figure 2: Upright SPM watermark

Figure 3: Sideway up SPM watermark

Figure 4: Sideway down SPM watermark

Figure 5: Inverted SPM watermark

Figure 6: Inverted-Reversed SPM watermark

Figure 7: Sideway up-reversed SPM watermark

Figure 8: The miniature sheet of the Father of Independence released on 3 March, 2003 has three different watermarks - upright, inverted and inverted-reserved

Figure 9: One of the beta fish stamps released on 26 April, 2003 has three different watermarks - sideway up, sideway down and sideway up-reversed

Wednesday, 18 March 2009

This aerogramme was sent from Sg Siput to an address in the United Kingdom on November 19, 1997. The pictorial aerogramme shows the rich biological diversity of Endau-Rompin Park, Malaysia. Species of fungus (Cookeina tricholoma), fern (Selaginella willdenovii) and flowering plant (Spathoglottis aurea) are shown on the front of the aerogramme. On the other hand, the printed stamp on the aerogramme depicts a chamelon Calotes cristatellus.

This aerogramme was sent from Sg Siput to an address in the United Kingdom on November 6, 1998. The pictorial aerogramme was released to commemorate Malaysia as the host country for XVI Commonwealth Games 1998. The printed stamp on the aerogramme depicts the Malawati Stadium in Shah Alam, Selangor.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

I got a small cover from a dealer when I was in England in the middle of 1990s. It is a cover from Ireland. I like it because it has a clear and nice slogan postmark sending a message on donating kidney. The slogan postmark reads as "BE A KIDNEY DONOR". The cover was posted from Baile A'tha Cliath on August 26, 1985.

Monday, 16 March 2009

Below is an aerogramme sent from Sg Siput to Great Britain on July 28, 1998. This pictorial aerogramme shows the image of Forest Research Insitute Malaysia (FRIM). The printed stamp on the aerogramme depicts timber species Dryobalanop aromatica, locally known as kapur.

Sunday, 15 March 2009

On August 28, 2008, Pos Malaysia issued modern arts stamps (click here to see the whole set of stamps). All the stamps are SPM watermarked. However, the 30 sen stamp (see the image below) has two different watermarks - upright and inverted. It is said that the inverted watermark one is less common.

Spirit of Ledang by Syed Ahmad Jamal (2003); painted using acrylic on canvas

Thursday, 12 March 2009

The next stamp issue (March 23, 2009) for Malaysia is wedding costumes. To warm up the release of the Malaysia stamp wedding costume issue, I am delighted to show you an issue of wedding costumes released by Laotian postal authority. The stamps were released on 30 October, 2000.

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Pos Malaysia and Singapore Post released a joint stamp issue on June 27, 2002 on topic of birds. The stamp design of both the postal authorities was similar. Four different bird species depicted on this fine stamp set, i.e. white-bellied black woodpecker (30s, black-naped oriole (30s); Shelly's sunbird (RM1) and blue-backed fairy bluebird (RM1). The stamps were issued in setenant pair format in a sheet containing 20 stamps. I noted that some stamp sheets (not all) have serial number on the left margin of the sheet (see the image below).